Warriors in 5.2

Good Afternoon All - It's your turn you bloodthirsty!.... Very nice people.

Some of you may have seen a similar thread in the DK Forums, most will not have. This is the reason for me posting here. First of all, let me say that I hate these threads usually, so I feel kinda dirty for posting one! Here's the story;

I have played a rogue for my entire wow career, up until MoP. I raid in a semi competitive 10man (usually around world 250, so we clear content just not in a rush)

I switched to Monk to open up the Rogue spot to a fairly good app that we had, I felt it was time to move away from rogue and after playing Beta from the start I was happy with Monks.

T14 has been utterly mind numbing, the Monk rotation is boring me to tears and it is only getting simpler with buffs to the class. Don't get me wrong, I like that they are tuning the class but it's just going to get 'easier'. I like a level of complexity with the rotations, I'm a min-maxer and Monk just doesn't allow for that.

A recent change to our roster means that we have no Plate DPS. As such I'm looking at swapping class in 5.2.

So that takes me to Ret Pally, DK, or Warrior. The main contenders are DK or Warrior. Ret pally historically doesn't appeal.

I've done some research into these classes but it's always best to get information from the proverbial horses mouth.

TL;DR Question: How are Warriors looking in 5.2? I understand Fury is the go-to spec and that Arms may be getting some QOL stuff / buffs in 5.2 for PVE damage? How is rage generation in either spec? I hear SMF is superior to TG - is this being equalized in 5.2? Do you find you are auto attacking without active skills for long (I know they aren't GCD capped)? What are the procs like? Is there much to watch? EJ warrior forums seem to have gone the way of the dodo and I've only found bits of information here and there.

Thank you all in advance. Your opinions and thoughts are much appreciated.

From a PvP view, warriors were toned down considerably. They are no longer the gods they were at release. Right now, there are pretty close to parity with the other classes. Rogues, Monks, DKs, and Frost mages are significantly stronger on the PTR though, meaning some perceive warriors as "overnerfed" when the truth is Rogues, Monks, DKs were overbuffed, and Frost mages, who really, really needed to be toned down, were not.

If you find the monk rotation boring you probably won't find much appeal for arms. Fury isn't exactly complex it just requires a slight bit of planning ahead to pool enough resources for each colossus smash window and you are good to go. RNG can still leave rather huge holes in your rotation if you happen to be unlucky enough.

Well that's interesting to know. To give you an idea of the monk rotation, I was playing progression on 5000 MS the other night (my area is flooded) and I was able to stay post 100K dps due to the rotation never changing other than an occasional mastery proc.

Personally I don't have much experience doing other classes than mage and warrior at raiding level, so not in a very good position to compare. Nevertheless, complexity does in my opinion pretty much depend on what you perceive as complex. The main elements in fury rotation (if you can call it that) is being able to predict your rage income and know when it is most beneficial to spend it. In cata we were basically mashing all buttons as much as our keyboard could take, but this is not the case anymore. The entire thing revolves around putting as much of your rage usage as possible inside the 4 GCD's following a CS, while also being aware of trinkets and other icd's that should be lined up. Empty globals is a decreasing "problem" when gear levels go up, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. I don't see rage generation as a problem as long as you don't blindly mash buttons cata style.

In a nutshell fury revolves around planning rage usage and predicting your rage situation within the near future and not so much reacting on random procs (generally you need to make a choice to use the proc or save it for later, while not wasting raging blow procs due to capping them) or keeping up a butload of dots or other stuff you need to track. Execute makes up a stupid part of our damage in particular for SMF, so getting that part right plays a decisive role in the final numbers. Performance wise fury is very competitive and the SMF/TG choice pretty much depends on what weapons you are able to get. Utility wise (reliable soaking etc.) fury might be somewhat lacking. Pulling agro with our extremely strong opener is somewhat of a concern, so having Salvation helps there

Good Afternoon All - It's your turn you bloodthirsty!.... Very nice people.

Some of you may have seen a similar thread in the DK Forums, most will not have. This is the reason for me posting here. First of all, let me say that I hate these threads usually, so I feel kinda dirty for posting one! Here's the story;

I have played a rogue for my entire wow career, up until MoP. I raid in a semi competitive 10man (usually around world 250, so we clear content just not in a rush)

I switched to Monk to open up the Rogue spot to a fairly good app that we had, I felt it was time to move away from rogue and after playing Beta from the start I was happy with Monks.

T14 has been utterly mind numbing, the Monk rotation is boring me to tears and it is only getting simpler with buffs to the class. Don't get me wrong, I like that they are tuning the class but it's just going to get 'easier'. I like a level of complexity with the rotations, I'm a min-maxer and Monk just doesn't allow for that.

A recent change to our roster means that we have no Plate DPS. As such I'm looking at swapping class in 5.2.

So that takes me to Ret Pally, DK, or Warrior. The main contenders are DK or Warrior. Ret pally historically doesn't appeal.

I've done some research into these classes but it's always best to get information from the proverbial horses mouth.

TL;DR Question: How are Warriors looking in 5.2? I understand Fury is the go-to spec and that Arms may be getting some QOL stuff / buffs in 5.2 for PVE damage? How is rage generation in either spec? I hear SMF is superior to TG - is this being equalized in 5.2? Do you find you are auto attacking without active skills for long (I know they aren't GCD capped)? What are the procs like? Is there much to watch? EJ warrior forums seem to have gone the way of the dodo and I've only found bits of information here and there.

Thank you all in advance. Your opinions and thoughts are much appreciated.

Go Warrior.

They're almost always competitive in PVE and right now they have unprecedented raid utility.

And as for the rotation, getting the most out of your Fury warr will prove to be more difficult than you could imagine.

I would say it's a fairly complex rotation, except for sub 20%.

That's just my opinion.

The dragons' flame sealed my fate. The world of the living can no longer comfort me.

From a PvP view, warriors were toned down considerably. They are no longer the gods they were at release. Right now, there are pretty close to parity with the other classes. Rogues, Monks, DKs, and Frost mages are significantly stronger on the PTR though, meaning some perceive warriors as "overnerfed" when the truth is Rogues, Monks, DKs were overbuffed, and Frost mages, who really, really needed to be toned down, were not.

Venaliter is more than 100% correct.. I feel exactly the same so far, and I hope everything gets balanced out a bit because - As much as I agree with the nerfs to Def stance from 25% down to 10% - and the dps going down.. I feel that if they did this - every single class will be MUCH farther ahead of us/thus putting us back where we were in late Cata (if you remember Cata, at the very end: You would take ANYTHING ahead of a warrior.. literally ANYTHING, it would be better than taking a warrior). I truly hope this doesn't happen when 5.2 launches..

The burst window playstyle also makes it interesting in that the dps difference between getting it right and using up rage in the wrong window is immense. It also requires good awareness of boss mechanics and everything else that is going on so you can time the 6 sec burst windows right to get maximum benefit since there is no rotation to speak of that you can just keep doing and push out steady dps and a loss of any gcd's within the window due to a sudden movement or something else really hurts.

If you want a crazy rotation go for feral. monk is REALLY lazy. don't like it but i sometimes have to play it because there is only one tank needed and the monk dps is good. really good. (i hope there are no one tank encounters in 5.2)
i tried fury too but it's really rng with that crits. the better the gear, the better the fun i think

i tried fury too but it's really rng with that crits. the better the gear, the better the fun i think

This is somewhat true at lower ilvls, but once you get over like 485 ilvl, it starts becoming much less rng especially over the full duration of a fight. In the OP's guild the gear level shouldn't be a problem i guess.

Venaliter is more than 100% correct.. I feel exactly the same so far, and I hope everything gets balanced out a bit because - As much as I agree with the nerfs to Def stance from 25% down to 10% - and the dps going down.. I feel that if they did this - every single class will be MUCH farther ahead of us/thus putting us back where we were in late Cata (if you remember Cata, at the very end: You would take ANYTHING ahead of a warrior.. literally ANYTHING, it would be better than taking a warrior). I truly hope this doesn't happen when 5.2 launches..

- Dac

You should clarify that your mostly talking about PvP, and the OP is mostly talking about Raiding. Can't tell me Fury wasn't useful on Spine because I was one who was... it had exactly what spine needed, lots of burst damage and cooldown stacking (if you still say it wasn't then the only thing you could bring at all would be an arcane mage and that's not a very fair comparison of where warriors were in dps). D.stance doesn't factor into a PvE environment at all as dps except to try and tank during a wipe as a last ditch effort, and if you haven't been keeping track, you can just glyph Dbts and use wild strike to keep it up. They did not nerf D.Stance for tanks btw, same as it always was (the extra DR is in Unwavering Sentinel)

Edit: I guess I can add my 2 cents. Rage is a nice resource, feels more unpredictable as far as abilities go. If you like the monks mobility then only warrior can even come close to comparing.

Edit 2: Looking at the post and theres more I could expand on. With DK keeping track of your runes is needed for optimal use of them, but it's a pita to keep an eye on them and on cooldowns. You really need to be able to just memorize your bar and watch your runes or use a mod to arrange the information for you (you can just watch the abilities, but you won't be as optimal as if you watched the runes and you might end up with gaps in your playing.) Rage requires only a glance at the bar to know what you need to do, and you can focus more on the abilities instead.

I play all 3. I prefer warrior over the other two (but to be fair I was playing one long before either were created).

Don't people understand.
We warriors were op at the beginning of mop due to how shit we were at the end of cata.
GC loves mages, so ofc when they needed a nerf, they get buffed.....
warriors however did need a nerf, but not too much of a nerf that took place.
Tbh I hope they revert the change on avatar.

Historically when raiding as a Warrior, you start out slow, and you gain in relative power as the expac wears on and your crit/weapon damage goes up. I imagine Warrior DPS to be on the op side come Tier 16, ad it's been in each of Tiers 13 and 10 before it. We're fairly middle-of-the-pack right now, but we can top the charts when we have a chance to unload during our CS windows in tandem with other damage modifiers, like Scary Fog on Lei Shi or Garalon legs for example.

Earlier on though, it was rough. I got benched for Feng-h and Gara'jal-h because the raid needed all it could get to reach his execute point let alone a kill. A LOT of your damage depends on what you do in the execute phase. Execute damage is a contentious issue, we all love seeing exec crits in the millions, but sometimes the key burn phase is not also the execute phase. Execute becomes a live-by-the-sword/die-by-the-sword thing, and hopefully your tank holds enough threat so you don't frequently have to pop die by the sword (cwutididther?)...

We're looking to be in a good spot as we get unbuffed crit north of 30% next tier. The spots where you go through 2-3 BT's without an Enrage-proccing crit will soon be over. In addition to maximizing what you do in your CS window, as was said before, keeping your enrage uptime % at a maximum with smart usage of your Beserker Rage is hugely important now and will only grow more important as mastery levels climb.

There's Hit/Crit 1h Axes from the third boss in ToT, perfectly itemized for us, which will probably be obtainable very early into heroic progression. Obviously, Demo Banner/Skull Banner/Rallying Cry and all the mobility that comes with the class are very helpful. Frost DKs also bring a tremendous amount of utility. If your'e going to be the lone Plate DPS'er in your raid, it's a big decision between the two classes. I'm not sure you can go wrong between the two, DK's are also in a good spot right now from what I can see from ours.

In terms of enjoyment, Fury is a button-masher with resource-management/burst window strategic challenges baked in. I love it, it's vastly satisfying when you line your procs/CDs up and hit a ginormous Exec crit or string of RB Crits in your CS windows. Your eyes will light up when such opportunities arise and it's greatly gratifying when you successfully capitalize on them.

(Also, if you pick Warr go engineering because Gloves is a 1min CD like Bloodbath.)

As someone who raids on both a DK and a Warrior I would say that if rotations being boring is a problem don't ever roll DK. It's mindnumbing and stupid galore. At least during warrior rotations you have to think.

---------- Post added 2013-02-18 at 10:20 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Quill

Historically when raiding as a Warrior, you start out slow, and you gain in relative power as the expac wears on and your crit/weapon damage goes up. I imagine Warrior DPS to be on the op side come Tier 16, ad it's been in each of Tiers 13 and 10 before it. We're fairly middle-of-the-pack right now, but we can top the charts when we have a chance to unload during our CS windows in tandem with other damage modifiers, like Scary Fog on Lei Shi or Garalon legs for example.

Earlier on though, it was rough. I got benched for Feng-h and Gara'jal-h because the raid needed all it could get to reach his execute point let alone a kill. A LOT of your damage depends on what you do in the execute phase. Execute damage is a contentious issue, we all love seeing exec crits in the millions, but sometimes the key burn phase is not also the execute phase. Execute becomes a live-by-the-sword/die-by-the-sword thing, and hopefully your tank holds enough threat so you don't frequently have to pop die by the sword (cwutididther?)...

We're looking to be in a good spot as we get unbuffed crit north of 30% next tier. The spots where you go through 2-3 BT's without an Enrage-proccing crit will soon be over. In addition to maximizing what you do in your CS window, as was said before, keeping your enrage uptime % at a maximum with smart usage of your Beserker Rage is hugely important now and will only grow more important as mastery levels climb.

There's Hit/Crit 1h Axes from the third boss in ToT, perfectly itemized for us, which will probably be obtainable very early into heroic progression. Obviously, Demo Banner/Skull Banner/Rallying Cry and all the mobility that comes with the class are very helpful. Frost DKs also bring a tremendous amount of utility. If your'e going to be the lone Plate DPS'er in your raid, it's a big decision between the two classes. I'm not sure you can go wrong between the two, DK's are also in a good spot right now from what I can see from ours.

In terms of enjoyment, Fury is a button-masher with resource-management/burst window strategic challenges baked in. I love it, it's vastly satisfying when you line your procs/CDs up and hit a ginormous Exec crit or string of RB Crits in your CS windows. Your eyes will light up when such opportunities arise and it's greatly gratifying when you successfully capitalize on them.

(Also, if you pick Warr go engineering because Gloves is a 1min CD like Bloodbath.)

Best of luck.

Having read this post after I made mine I have to say it sums up everything perfectly. Especially the part about it being a great thing when cooldowns line up on the warrior, whereas when it happens on the DK it's kind of meh...